our disaster
by underlings
Summary: if i fell, would you catch me? au, natsu/lucy.


**disclaimer**: story image (c) _shumijin_  
**dedication**: to shiny special otps  
**notes**: wow this is a mess, sorry

**title**: our disaster  
**summary**: if i fell, would you catch me? au, natsu/lucy.

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_look at the stars,  
__look how they shine for you_

**(coldplay)**

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"Would you ever undo it?" Levy asks her one day, and she's suddenly swept away by the memories.

/

They're seven years old when they first meet, and Lucy finds Natsu _insufferable_.

"Missed me, missed me! Now you gotta kiss me!"

And maybe the reason that Lucy finally stands up is because she's gotten tired of him constantly picking on her and teasing her and tugging at her golden hair. The idiot doesn't even seem to realize what's about to happen until she latches onto his arm, preventing him from running away. "Okay, I'll kiss you." And she does and then she pulls away and lets him go and they both start making gagging noises.

(They secretly like it.)

/

When they're eleven, her mom dies and his dad walks out—and their worlds sort of… _implode_. "So, I guess this is goodbye," Natsu (for some reason) insists on telling her as they walk towards the train set to wrench them apart forever.

"Don't talk to me again until you can stop saying stupid stuff," is all Lucy says, seriously, when they finally reach the gate. Slapping his fingers numb, she snatches her bag from his hands (the one he insisted he carry for her) and enters the station without another word.

And that's the day they fall in love with each other (or really, when Natsu falls in love with her).

/

She is fifteen when her heart first breaks, but she doesn't let anyone see it.

(If _he_ had been there, he would have seen anyway.)

"This is just the way it has to be, Lucy," Jude Heartfilia says, severely, and standing next to him, Lucy's (future) husband is silent. There's not much he can say, really — within the next year he and her are apparently to be married, and there's nothing either of them can do about it.

"Okay," Lucy says, simply, mouth moving of it's own accord. And her father, clearly expecting some sort of vehement protest, looks slightly surprised, before relief takes over the expression as he nods. "I'm pleased that you understand the gravity of the situation, Lucy."

Gritting her teeth, she just bows her head, demurely clasping her hands behind her and curtsying in an elegantly swift movement. "Thank you, father. May I be excused?" She mumbles, and he gives his assent.

But at the door, she pauses and glances back. "Oh, I almost forgot. Thank you, for this… wonderful… birthday present. Father." And that's the only emotion she gives him.

That night, she cries herself to sleep on a train going—somewhere, with Natsu's scarf (sans Natsu) pressed up against her nose.

/

And then she's seventeen — and she's grown into herself. She's no longer an awkward thirteen year old girl with knobby knees who's not quite sure how to rebel against her father; no, this isn't _Lucky Lucy_ of the Heartfilia Konzern, anymore, it's _Just Lucy_—and she's the most beautiful girl in the world.

Her hair is down — except for a singularly expressive side-ponytail — and she's got every single person in the port town of Hargeon wrapped around her little finger, which makes the girls glare and the boys collectively sigh because they all know none of them have a chance.

On her throne, Lucy smirks (she's practiced).

She is the ruler of the world, or well, Hargeon, at least.

And Lucy Heartfilia, Queen, doesn't need anyone. She's gotten used to being alone; likes being alone. (Really, she does.)

Despite all this, Natsu still manages to find her — or she manages to find him; they find each other? somehow, and yeah, maybe she thinks that he's (still) far too reckless and loud and uncaring about his general appearance; way too sloppy and completely _crazy_ (but everyone at Fairy Tail is, really, she's soon to find out) and sometimes, she thinks herself a complete and total_ imbecile _for falling for him.

But then he grins and her heart races and she remembers giddily pushing him into mud puddles and all of their fights; the way she felt when she had to wave goodbye from a glittering train window all those years ago, clutching his gifted scarf like nothing else, and — yeah, you could say that she kinda_sorta_ loves him.

Lucy isn't sure how to love, but she loves Natsu.

And she swears to herself that she'll never tell him.

/

Lucy is eighteen and beautiful and the Queen when she gives up.

Natsu's about to head off on a long journey to go find his father—_alone_, except with that stupid (her word, not his) blue cat of his and she's frowning and protesting because they've only just gotten back together for not even a year, at which point he looks embarrassed, shyly admitting that he doesn't want her to get hurt, but this only makes her angrier, somehow — because she's _not _some delicate flower — so she informs him huffily that he's saying stupid things again, and then it somehow escalates into a full blown argument that even the most contentious at Fairy Tail seem afraid to break up.

Harsh words are thrown around and then it gets to her screaming that he'll never find Igneel because _he's been gone for—what? how many years now?_ And then he's yelling that _of course _she _wouldn't understand, because what the hell would she know about healthy relationships with fathers anyway_, and it ends with her kicking him painfully and grabbing the longest job on the request board she can find and sprinting out of there like a coward — because that's what she always does—runsruns_runs_ as fast as she can.

When she gets back a week later, tired and — hopeful? maybe, Mira explains — with a poorly disguised look of pity — that he and Happy are gone (the_ possibly forever_, is left unsaid) and it infuriates her to no end, because Natsu shouldn't just be _gone_ (at least, not without her) because he is hers and she is his and he's the one she grew up with, the one she played with and hated, but loved at the same time: he's both her worst enemy and her best friend and he's held her when she cried and admired her laugh and walked her to and from places like a true gentleman, even at ten years old; and Natsu Dragneel is Lucy Heartfilia's.

So, naturally, she goes home and feeds all of her (unsealed, unsent) letters (meticulously written to him over the years) through a shredder, and on a fresh, blank piece of paper, calmly writes out:

_It's too late. You're too late._

_Have a nice life — asshole._

And then she goes over to his house and tranquilly shoves the offending slip of paper under his doorway. (Of course, four seconds later, she regrets it, but then forces herself not to care; it's not like he'll be back anytime soon to read it anyway, and _no_, she didn't have to stop herself from crying at that.)

/

A year later, fate finally works (?) in her favor… not that she's one to believe in fate.

They bump into each other on the street and she spills her piping hot coffee all over his shirt and right when she's about to apologize, she recognizes him and almost cries.

Seemingly unaffected by the scalding heat of her morning drink, regret shines like stars in Natsu's eyes. "Lucy." He moves closer, but she steps back, feeling all but cornered.

"What are you even doing here, Natsu?" She says, tiredly. "Y-you made your choice." Her voice cracks as Natsu steps forward again: he's always been one to push at boundaries and push lines, while Lucy was the one to sit back and manipulate people into doing it for her.

"I chose wrong, Lucy." And he doesn't even say please, doesn't plead with her, doesn't beg her for a second chance — though, that wouldn't have been like him at all, would it? He just snatches up her wrist and tugs her to him, and in one swift motion he's—kissing her.

Eyes wide with shock, she tells herself to pull away, but for every rule she's ever made for herself, Natsu was always the exception—even now, twelve years after they first met — and so she just sighs into him, trying hard not to smile when their cheeks brush and she finds that his face is just as flushed as hers.

But when they finally pull apart, both breathing heavy, she yelps and slaps him so hard that Gajeel and Wendy later swear that the reverberation could be heard from all the way at Fairy Tail.

/

They're twenty-one and he's dead a week before the wedding.

_There was nothing we could do_, and visions of him flat-lining before her eyes haunt her and she wakes up gasping for breath, sweat rolling down from her hairline and her sheets pooled around her legs, twisted up in a mass of white and _blood stains_ and _no_, she thinks — _not all that I have left of him, oh_ Mavis_ no_. And then she's screaming and crying and she calls Levy in a panic and "I'm pregnant and I think I just lost it. Levy, please come over. Please, Levy—," and the rest of her words are indecipherable because she's screaming and crying and begging into the receiver for Natsu to come back.

(She knows he's not going to.)

There's a sudden mewl to her right, and she's startled out of her despair when Happy places a small, comforting paw on her arm. The gentle action calms her to an effect, and she takes a deep breath, smiling shakily as he snuggles up against her side, tail flicking from side-to-side.

As it turns out, the baby (two months) is fine. "It was just some spotting, nothing to worry about," Porlyusica states, evenly, and then seven months later the baby is born and she holds her breath because the air is silent moments after she's finally pushed it out — a sharp cry.

Lucy exhales.

"A boy!" Wendy exclaims joyfully, holding out the little, swaddled up baby to her. "What's his name?" And she's young and happy, with widebrightshining eyes, still un-scarred by the world, and so Lucy thinks of herself at seven years old — kissing Natsu for the first time — and a quiet sadness wells up inside her as she tries not to cry.

"Igneel. His name is Igneel," she manages, recalling that specific bit of Natsu's wish, that one time they ever spoke about having children — when he had blushed madly, but she had just laughed, telling him in no uncertain terms that if they ever had a girl that they_ must_ name her Layla.

Lucy takes the baby—_their_ baby—but then her son does the most peculiar thing: he smiles, and then Lucy really does cry because at that moment she's just so happy, but so full of sadness at the same time, and _I love you, I love you, I love you_, and she's not just talking to the baby in her arms with her should've-been-husband's cheery expression and darkdark eyes.

From what she can tell, Igneel's going to be a mirror image of his late father, and Levy takes Lucy's free hand in her own as Erza hovers around the end of the bed, wringing her hands, somehow looking awkward, yet proud at the same time.

Gray pokes his head in curiously, followed by a cooing Juvia when Porlyusica and Wendy venture out of the infirmary — the former no doubt muttering something insulting about humans under her breath, and the latter looking jovial. Loud cheers and various _ha! you owe me—!'s_ can be heard from the many others gathered outside, and Lucy bemusedly catches Cana's confident proclamation that her "cards are never wrong!"

"You'll be fine," Levy whispers so that the others—now streaming in through the doorway—can't hear, but her voice cracks a little and she's wearing a watery smile. "It'll all be okay."

And Lucy believes her, somewhat.

/

Now, her son is twenty-three — about to marry the girl of his dreams, and Lucy has on a sad smile as Levy whispers to her, "Would you ever undo it?"

"No," She doesn't hesitate to answer. "I wouldn't." — just as Igneel Dragneel says,

"I do."

And somewhere, beyond this earthly realm, Natsu Dragneel is whispering to Lucy, "I love you."

She doesn't have to hear his voice to know he's saying it. "I love you, too," Lucy mutters, so quietly no one can catch it.

No one but Natsu, who always catches it — who always catches _her_.

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_fin_.  
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